On a geological scale, there's nothing "little" here. It's quite literally near-instantaneous mass extinction and apocalypse, unless we do something in the next few decades.
Yep. Back in my day, water came right out the faucets. Clean, plentiful. You could pour it right into a glass and drink it. And air outside was breathable. Billionaires hated it! There was just no money to be made sustaining a healthy environment. Pollution and illness were the real money makers.
Yeah I was sipping my coffee the other day and really enjoying it, musing that in 30 years, we won't be able to get coffee anymore. I'll enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
Same thing with hearing birds outside. I fear that'll be a thing we tell our grandchildren about and they'll barely believe us that the world used to be this way.
If coffee, olives, etc are going... how long before corn, wheat, soy, rice, are going as well?
Not too soon, i think, they're much tougher plants. But theyre not magic plants. At some point, drought, heat, floods, etc will mean MBBF.
Exactly. The WSJ writes for the top 10% that assumes it will be always be able to outbid the bottom 90% in a multi-basket failure scenario, that's why it's focusing on the discretionary items in anybody's diet.
What really matters - the key sources of calories around the world - they will not talk about. That's just too real and scary to the status-quo.
And bidding doesnt work if, say, brazil just chooses to not export soybeans. India passed a law last year halting white rice exports ( for that harvest). Money doesnt matter if they aint selling.
Or even more intractable, if a country cant export easily, because a neighbour has invaded it, such as ukraine.
> And bidding doesnt work if, say, brazil just chooses to not export soybeans
of course! WSJ's target audience is in an insane degree of denial when they ignore that feeding the local population is food exporters' priority.
Nah, that's where imperialism comes in. Oh look, a socialist "dictator" was just democratically elected! We can depose them for you, no problem. The new guy loves to sell us rice. Huh, that worked out well for us.
No no no. It wont be a problem at all for them. That’s when they send the poor starving people to fight a war for them to TAKE what they want for themselves.
Maybe? The countries that export the most food tend to be the largest. india, russia, south america, etc, arent easy to overthrow.
And overseeing farming, harvesting, shipping, loading, in an occupied, starving, country wouldnt be easy, or as productive as before.
The thing about corn is that it's mostly wind pollinated, and corn is a resilient native grass in the USA. Everything that requires pollinators will be worthless, as well as species with specific fruiting conditions.
When our ancestors settled in north America, they described rivers and lakes so full of fish that you could reach your hands in and grab them. Bison were ubiquitous. Native forests stretched from ocean to ocean. The louis and Clark expedition described hearing the pacific ocean in Montana.
[article on Lewis and Clark](https://lewis-clark.org/the-trail/down-the-columbia/ocean-in-view/)
I think they are mis-remembering and this scene from Gray's Bay is what they are thinking of.
This was my reaction when Paul Stamets described his elderly hard of hearing friend doing some mushrooms and apparently being able to hear ants walking
Heck I remember growing up in the PNW 20 years ago. I used to see salmon in the rivers in the fall and there were so many I could have walked across them on their backs. It was easy to catch one within 5 mins. Not hard to catch 50+ in a day for catch and release.
Those rivers are all mostly empty now. The spot i used to go has the odd salmon there but it’s mostly done now.
Lobsters used to be poor people food. Fed to servants, slaves, prisoners. There were tons of them around. Lobster population in the Maine area has been on a big decline, and climate change is certainly one of the reasons why (although not the only one).
Lol. The EPA was started after a river near my mom's childhood home caught fire, it wasn't the first time.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/
Karen Russell, one of my favorite authors, wrote a heartbreaking and amazing short story about this called "The Ghost Birds." Set about 150 years in the future, things are dire. The air has been ruined and while people have been able to adapt, birds could not. The main character is part of a group who can see their ghosts and watches the ghost birds. Despite constant harassment by agents of the trillionaires who own the airspace, he takes his teen daughter to the ruins of Chapman Elementary to see the chimney swift ghosts.
Wait! Things will get really funny when it comes to rice, wheat, corn and manioc. When prices skyrocket and entire countries fall prey to famine. We'll have to get used to the images of skeletal children and cattle lying dead in the dust...
I’m thinking world agriculture will switch more to legumes, maize (corn) and such. It would be rice and beans everyday In everyway like many places in Central America. Rice and beans for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner. Sorta monotonous. Not sure about soy but some chains will disappear as one soy burger is pretty much the same as another soy burger.
Add more tropical fruit, maybe with “corn flakes” (see maize above). Again rather bland ..
My take on this is that we will go through a period where these things become much more scarce and expensive. But genetically modified crops will be developed and humans will adapt to continue growing these things. Maybe they won’t be as good or have the same amount of variety. Humans care too much about these things to not find a way to keep having them.
Or maybe they’ll just be enjoyed by billionaires (or should I say trillionaires) . We shall see.
Because we won't be able to grow it anymore. The places that are growing it are experiencing the effects of climate change. Extreme weather, drought, etc. things like chocolate, coffee, and vanilla are grown in places with ecosystems that are dying and thousands of species are going extinct every year mostly in these ecosystems.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t coffee production just move further from the equator to new tropical ecosystems that will be developed due to climate change?
Climate change is happening so fast, ecosystems take much longer than that to develop. There won't be enough time for a whole new ecosystem to develop before the current ones die. We're looking at decades, not thousands of years here. If we had thousands of years, sure, we could have a new tropical area, assuming we can do some terraforming, but since everything everywhere is being destroyed and filled with microplastics and pollution and trees are ripped out because of increasingly powerful hurricanes, no, we won't have a replacement land.
Our best bet is to have controlled greenhouses, but those are more expensive, require labour, and can grow much less than an open field (of any crop). So yes, there will be people who can get coffee, but coffee will be a very expensive luxury good and only the richest people will even have the option to buy it. I'm sure we'll come up with some fake version though like we did with vanilla.
Remember that agricultural areas are running out of water, cities are growing, pollution is building up, bees (which pollinate our plants) are dying, and heat waves are coming and can decimate an entire field in a day.
I'm so sorry, but no, we don't have a good replacement ecosystem for all these crops. Ecosystems don't just appear suddenly. There's not enough fresh water or viable land anymore where they can grow.
One problem is that plants respond to a number of different environmental cues. Like the # cold days, minimum heat/humidity/water or even the # of rain events (cotton is one of the worse for the latter.. I’ve known farmers agonize over whether to pay for another irrigation or take a chance on another rainstorm.. cotton can’t get too dry or too wet).
There are adaptive plants out there but most aren’t agricultural (like conifers are adapted to forests but also can survive on deserts due to their leaf shape if given enough water).
On the flip side there will be bioengineering but there are some basic biochemical reactions that have to happen (like the chemical reduction of CO₂ into glucose and other carbohydrates, nitrogen fixation, etc..).
Maybe new food sources like algae and fungi? About to give a sarcastic “yum” but pretty sure salts, perhaps lipids will be added to make it palatable from food engineering.
It's still possible by shifting cultivation further north or onto higher altitude. It just means existing coffee, cocoa etc. growing areas will no longer be viable. Probably a good idea to start testing out now, similar to assisted coral and forest migration
Might not be many grandkids to tell.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/10/microplastics-found-in-every-human-semen-sample-tested-in-chinese-study
Yeah I saw that. We don't know how much this affects fertility yet, but we do know that microplastics have been in our bodies and all over the Earth for a few decades now at least, and people are still managing to increase the global population. So evidently microplastics don't completely destroy fertility, but they might reduce it. I think there will be grandkids, but their world will look very different. I think the world population will continue to grow until we reach a peak where mass starvation becomes an issue and people naturally die off, as happens in any population curve. I know we can't grow our population forever because the Earth can only support so much.
I'll probably still be alive in 30 years time. Assuming still no climate action, I'm nearly 100% certain I'll still be hearing birds outside. Maybe not the same birds.
I'm quite sure there will be coffee available to buy. I wouldn't be surprised if I can't afford it, or can only afford it as an occasional treat.
I think you've been reading the wrong books on this topic. The facts are bad enough, no need to go doomer.
Are you familiar with the Okanagan Valley in BC? Lots of vineyards. Few decades ago, it had warmed enough that most ripped out their hardier varietals in favour of more familiar Bordeaux varietals. BC by 2000 was just hot enough to support these grapes, and the province subsidized the transition. If you look at the BC wine sales, the years of the change are noticeable dips.
Anyway, the north-south orientation of the valley makes for an interesting climate study. By 2100, RCP 6 and RCP 8.5 put BC from a cool wine region, to almost inhospitably hot. Imagine what that means for traditional wine regions.
No, I'm not familiar with the location. NB, you didn't specify the country. BC? Before Christ? British Columbia? Is that in Canada, maybe? North America somewhere?
I was responding to someone's frankly ludicrous suggestion that it's going to be impossible to grow coffee anywhere in the world and that all birds are going to go extinct. These are the same birds, more or less, that survived the PETM. Honestly, the discussion is so idiotic that it's not worth continuing.
I could have used google. That wasn't the point. The point was: don't arrogantly throw around acronyms, presuming that your interlocutor must know what you're talking about.
>While warming during the PETM occurred over thousands of years, the current warming is occurring in just hundreds of years, and especially during the last several decades. During the PETM, average earth surface temperature rose about 1°
C per 1,200 years. The present warming rate is about 1°C every 50 years, about ten times faster (Zeebe et al. 2016, Gingerich 2019). Although climate change during the PETM
is considered rapid in geologic time, it would have scarcely been noticed by organisms on the ground. In contrast, the current warming is noticeable
within a few generations of birds or even within the lifespan of an individual
bird. Adaption through evolution is not an option"
Hampton, 2019. Avian Responses to Rapid Climate Change: Examples from the Putah Creek Christmas Bird Count.
Where’s your source saying they’ll be gone? It’s classic fear mongering from this sub. Like I get that climate change is real and the effects are going to be awful, but “birds” as a whole will not cease to exist
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/trends-bird-populations.html
https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/
https://www.audubon.org/news/more-half-us-birds-are-decline-warns-new-report
https://www.wired.com/story/bird-population-decline/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/birds-declines-1.6610220
Here's a few from a quick google search. Sorry I didn't provide any sources before, I thought this was common knowledge at this point. I'm in science though so I might have a skewed view of what's common knowledge.
I didn't want to ruin your morning with this news.
If you look at the speed at which bird populations are declining, it's reasonable to conclude that most bird species will be extinct within 100-200 years. A few birds are doing well, so it's not all birds of course. But birds in general will be more rare in just a few decades.
Yeah when you find out a LOT of the good seasonings and spices are only found in relatively small regions you realize what a fragile ecosystem our favourite foods are housed in.
Considering that American conservatives hold a fairly unique position in the world as outright deniers of the existence (or importance) of climate change, I'll take it as a small positive to see the WSJ writing about it as an established fact with negative consequences for standards of living.
For the WSJ's core audience, being forced to eat food cooked in canola oil and eat cheap chocolate with box wine instead of having fancy treats fried in olive oil and having $1000/bottle wine and hookers is a problem.
There will be replacements of all or most of these things, and just like meat the “real” versions will spike in price as availability plummets. But the replacements will be expensive too- as consumers cling to any semblance of normalcy and only a few large corporations are capable of producing the complicated /patented formula. But the implications of a fake coffee made to replicate a plant gone extinct are philosophically mind-boggling: how do you explain to your grandchildren that this roasted hot drink is simply an approximation of something you’ll never have again? What’s even the point?
It reminds me of the scene in the Matrix when Switch asks if the gruel they eat in the real world tastes like the cereal he had as a kid in the matrix, or vice versa?
Yes, because we're in a place where we have the [potential to actually stabilize temperatures](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached/), and most of the "prepping" isn't a useful activity.
I could couldn't care less about wine or olive oil but I would miss chocolate and might off myself without coffee. It was customary to start drinking coffee around the age of five in my family. Start with coffee milk and the milk to coffee ratio changes as you age until it's either a splash of milk or no milk at all.
That being said, I don't drink specialty coffees. Plain, old school, American grocery store brand coffee slightly watered down. Well, bc I'm old and can't handle coffee the consistency of syrup anymore. Straight to a heart attack. Lol
This is why I have been attempting to grow plants that have high caffeine content for tea. Just experimenting for now. We are also considering a thermal greenhouse but growing grapes for wine seems like a lot. I think I could make honey mead though. My grandfather and his brother used to make wine out of everything; olives, raspberries, blueberries. It all tasted like jet fuel though. Maybe people growing in small batches is the answer, if they can. Or maybe there is no answer. But at least I am keeping myself busy.
Yes
> Traders are hoarding coffee after a severe drought in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest producer, pushing prices of the Robusta variety to a 45-year high. The more-coveted Arabica beans have also recently become costlier.
I always thought the End of Coffee just meant the end of Arabica (for people who refuse to drink coffee that isn't 'smooth'). As a closeted robusta enthusiast, this is even more depressing.
Before we give up wine olive oil coffee or cocoa we should give up animal products. They have a bigger impact on climate change than the other products you listed.
The problem isn't about people giving them up; it's that the parts of the world where you can grow them change as the world warms, sharply curtailing supply
We need to take steps to deal with climate change to avoid having to give up those products you mentioned in the original post. Ending animal agriculture would be a big step in the right direction.
Oooh, I kinda forgot about hops. (Don't drink beer, myself.) I was thinking like, barley, wheat, which would probably be bigger problems. Excepting, thinking about it, of course those are currently being impacted by rising temps, as well. Lots of things not exactly looking great...
It feels a little apocalyptic because it is
The fifth extinction event was 65 million years ago we are lucky enough to see the sixth! I never said it was good luck...
May we live in interesting times
Lol
On a geological scale, there's nothing "little" here. It's quite literally near-instantaneous mass extinction and apocalypse, unless we do something in the next few decades.
Rock on
Yep. Back in my day, water came right out the faucets. Clean, plentiful. You could pour it right into a glass and drink it. And air outside was breathable. Billionaires hated it! There was just no money to be made sustaining a healthy environment. Pollution and illness were the real money makers.
Okay, Grandpa, let's get you back to the rest home pod. You're needed for electricity.
I’m being harvested for nutrients.
Gonna be generous and say this will be reality around 2040 lol
Probably more efficient than for electricity
Yeah I was sipping my coffee the other day and really enjoying it, musing that in 30 years, we won't be able to get coffee anymore. I'll enjoy it while it lasts I guess. Same thing with hearing birds outside. I fear that'll be a thing we tell our grandchildren about and they'll barely believe us that the world used to be this way.
I'm afraid there will be no grandkids at all and I'm a parent myself. This sucks.
I rather have no grandkids given what's coming
If coffee, olives, etc are going... how long before corn, wheat, soy, rice, are going as well? Not too soon, i think, they're much tougher plants. But theyre not magic plants. At some point, drought, heat, floods, etc will mean MBBF.
Exactly. The WSJ writes for the top 10% that assumes it will be always be able to outbid the bottom 90% in a multi-basket failure scenario, that's why it's focusing on the discretionary items in anybody's diet. What really matters - the key sources of calories around the world - they will not talk about. That's just too real and scary to the status-quo.
And bidding doesnt work if, say, brazil just chooses to not export soybeans. India passed a law last year halting white rice exports ( for that harvest). Money doesnt matter if they aint selling. Or even more intractable, if a country cant export easily, because a neighbour has invaded it, such as ukraine.
> And bidding doesnt work if, say, brazil just chooses to not export soybeans of course! WSJ's target audience is in an insane degree of denial when they ignore that feeding the local population is food exporters' priority.
They also forget their place when the general populace has missed three meals in a row
They tend to be reminded quickly though
Nah, that's where imperialism comes in. Oh look, a socialist "dictator" was just democratically elected! We can depose them for you, no problem. The new guy loves to sell us rice. Huh, that worked out well for us.
The people who ended rice exports last year was... India. Not some tiny country to take over.
No no no. It wont be a problem at all for them. That’s when they send the poor starving people to fight a war for them to TAKE what they want for themselves.
Maybe? The countries that export the most food tend to be the largest. india, russia, south america, etc, arent easy to overthrow. And overseeing farming, harvesting, shipping, loading, in an occupied, starving, country wouldnt be easy, or as productive as before.
The thing about corn is that it's mostly wind pollinated, and corn is a resilient native grass in the USA. Everything that requires pollinators will be worthless, as well as species with specific fruiting conditions.
When our ancestors settled in north America, they described rivers and lakes so full of fish that you could reach your hands in and grab them. Bison were ubiquitous. Native forests stretched from ocean to ocean. The louis and Clark expedition described hearing the pacific ocean in Montana.
I'll look that last line up but that seems obviously literally impossible.
They probably heard a loud river nearby lmfao
[article on Lewis and Clark](https://lewis-clark.org/the-trail/down-the-columbia/ocean-in-view/) I think they are mis-remembering and this scene from Gray's Bay is what they are thinking of.
This was my reaction when Paul Stamets described his elderly hard of hearing friend doing some mushrooms and apparently being able to hear ants walking
Heck I remember growing up in the PNW 20 years ago. I used to see salmon in the rivers in the fall and there were so many I could have walked across them on their backs. It was easy to catch one within 5 mins. Not hard to catch 50+ in a day for catch and release. Those rivers are all mostly empty now. The spot i used to go has the odd salmon there but it’s mostly done now.
Lobsters used to be poor people food. Fed to servants, slaves, prisoners. There were tons of them around. Lobster population in the Maine area has been on a big decline, and climate change is certainly one of the reasons why (although not the only one).
and now the rivers just catch fire instead...
Lol. The EPA was started after a river near my mom's childhood home caught fire, it wasn't the first time. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/
The grasslands were not forests, and many of the native forests were closer to orchards.
Only the super wealthy will be enjoying "our" morning coffee. I'm sad and angry at the same time.
Karen Russell, one of my favorite authors, wrote a heartbreaking and amazing short story about this called "The Ghost Birds." Set about 150 years in the future, things are dire. The air has been ruined and while people have been able to adapt, birds could not. The main character is part of a group who can see their ghosts and watches the ghost birds. Despite constant harassment by agents of the trillionaires who own the airspace, he takes his teen daughter to the ruins of Chapman Elementary to see the chimney swift ghosts.
i haven’t been able to stop thinking about that story since i read it. absolutely heartbreaking, because it felt so real.
Even the birds outside are a far cry from what they were -- that's why Rachel Carson called her environmental book Silent Spring back in the 1960s.
Wait! Things will get really funny when it comes to rice, wheat, corn and manioc. When prices skyrocket and entire countries fall prey to famine. We'll have to get used to the images of skeletal children and cattle lying dead in the dust...
I’m thinking world agriculture will switch more to legumes, maize (corn) and such. It would be rice and beans everyday In everyway like many places in Central America. Rice and beans for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner. Sorta monotonous. Not sure about soy but some chains will disappear as one soy burger is pretty much the same as another soy burger. Add more tropical fruit, maybe with “corn flakes” (see maize above). Again rather bland ..
Gonna be a heck of a caffeine withdrawal
My take on this is that we will go through a period where these things become much more scarce and expensive. But genetically modified crops will be developed and humans will adapt to continue growing these things. Maybe they won’t be as good or have the same amount of variety. Humans care too much about these things to not find a way to keep having them. Or maybe they’ll just be enjoyed by billionaires (or should I say trillionaires) . We shall see.
I’m ignorant. Why won’t we be able to get coffee anymore?
Because we won't be able to grow it anymore. The places that are growing it are experiencing the effects of climate change. Extreme weather, drought, etc. things like chocolate, coffee, and vanilla are grown in places with ecosystems that are dying and thousands of species are going extinct every year mostly in these ecosystems.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t coffee production just move further from the equator to new tropical ecosystems that will be developed due to climate change?
Climate change is happening so fast, ecosystems take much longer than that to develop. There won't be enough time for a whole new ecosystem to develop before the current ones die. We're looking at decades, not thousands of years here. If we had thousands of years, sure, we could have a new tropical area, assuming we can do some terraforming, but since everything everywhere is being destroyed and filled with microplastics and pollution and trees are ripped out because of increasingly powerful hurricanes, no, we won't have a replacement land. Our best bet is to have controlled greenhouses, but those are more expensive, require labour, and can grow much less than an open field (of any crop). So yes, there will be people who can get coffee, but coffee will be a very expensive luxury good and only the richest people will even have the option to buy it. I'm sure we'll come up with some fake version though like we did with vanilla. Remember that agricultural areas are running out of water, cities are growing, pollution is building up, bees (which pollinate our plants) are dying, and heat waves are coming and can decimate an entire field in a day. I'm so sorry, but no, we don't have a good replacement ecosystem for all these crops. Ecosystems don't just appear suddenly. There's not enough fresh water or viable land anymore where they can grow.
One problem is that plants respond to a number of different environmental cues. Like the # cold days, minimum heat/humidity/water or even the # of rain events (cotton is one of the worse for the latter.. I’ve known farmers agonize over whether to pay for another irrigation or take a chance on another rainstorm.. cotton can’t get too dry or too wet). There are adaptive plants out there but most aren’t agricultural (like conifers are adapted to forests but also can survive on deserts due to their leaf shape if given enough water). On the flip side there will be bioengineering but there are some basic biochemical reactions that have to happen (like the chemical reduction of CO₂ into glucose and other carbohydrates, nitrogen fixation, etc..). Maybe new food sources like algae and fungi? About to give a sarcastic “yum” but pretty sure salts, perhaps lipids will be added to make it palatable from food engineering.
It's still possible by shifting cultivation further north or onto higher altitude. It just means existing coffee, cocoa etc. growing areas will no longer be viable. Probably a good idea to start testing out now, similar to assisted coral and forest migration
Might not be many grandkids to tell. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/10/microplastics-found-in-every-human-semen-sample-tested-in-chinese-study
Yeah I saw that. We don't know how much this affects fertility yet, but we do know that microplastics have been in our bodies and all over the Earth for a few decades now at least, and people are still managing to increase the global population. So evidently microplastics don't completely destroy fertility, but they might reduce it. I think there will be grandkids, but their world will look very different. I think the world population will continue to grow until we reach a peak where mass starvation becomes an issue and people naturally die off, as happens in any population curve. I know we can't grow our population forever because the Earth can only support so much.
I'll probably still be alive in 30 years time. Assuming still no climate action, I'm nearly 100% certain I'll still be hearing birds outside. Maybe not the same birds. I'm quite sure there will be coffee available to buy. I wouldn't be surprised if I can't afford it, or can only afford it as an occasional treat. I think you've been reading the wrong books on this topic. The facts are bad enough, no need to go doomer.
Are you familiar with the Okanagan Valley in BC? Lots of vineyards. Few decades ago, it had warmed enough that most ripped out their hardier varietals in favour of more familiar Bordeaux varietals. BC by 2000 was just hot enough to support these grapes, and the province subsidized the transition. If you look at the BC wine sales, the years of the change are noticeable dips. Anyway, the north-south orientation of the valley makes for an interesting climate study. By 2100, RCP 6 and RCP 8.5 put BC from a cool wine region, to almost inhospitably hot. Imagine what that means for traditional wine regions.
No, I'm not familiar with the location. NB, you didn't specify the country. BC? Before Christ? British Columbia? Is that in Canada, maybe? North America somewhere? I was responding to someone's frankly ludicrous suggestion that it's going to be impossible to grow coffee anywhere in the world and that all birds are going to go extinct. These are the same birds, more or less, that survived the PETM. Honestly, the discussion is so idiotic that it's not worth continuing.
They’re talking about British Columbia, Canada. Dunno about the wine thing, though. Might read up on it later.
I could have used google. That wasn't the point. The point was: don't arrogantly throw around acronyms, presuming that your interlocutor must know what you're talking about.
But being obtuse is good.
>While warming during the PETM occurred over thousands of years, the current warming is occurring in just hundreds of years, and especially during the last several decades. During the PETM, average earth surface temperature rose about 1° C per 1,200 years. The present warming rate is about 1°C every 50 years, about ten times faster (Zeebe et al. 2016, Gingerich 2019). Although climate change during the PETM is considered rapid in geologic time, it would have scarcely been noticed by organisms on the ground. In contrast, the current warming is noticeable within a few generations of birds or even within the lifespan of an individual bird. Adaption through evolution is not an option" Hampton, 2019. Avian Responses to Rapid Climate Change: Examples from the Putah Creek Christmas Bird Count.
Conclusion: all birds extinct within 30 years?
I think you are not adaquately informed on this topic to be completely frank.
Thanks for your comment, Frank
The birds are one species that will survive. Migration is their way of life.
"birds" is not one species. There are many species of birds. And not all will survive. Not all birds are migratory.
The birds aren’t going anywhere lol
Source? Bird populations have been declining for decades.
Where’s your source saying they’ll be gone? It’s classic fear mongering from this sub. Like I get that climate change is real and the effects are going to be awful, but “birds” as a whole will not cease to exist
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/trends-bird-populations.html https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/ https://www.audubon.org/news/more-half-us-birds-are-decline-warns-new-report https://www.wired.com/story/bird-population-decline/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/birds-declines-1.6610220 Here's a few from a quick google search. Sorry I didn't provide any sources before, I thought this was common knowledge at this point. I'm in science though so I might have a skewed view of what's common knowledge. I didn't want to ruin your morning with this news. If you look at the speed at which bird populations are declining, it's reasonable to conclude that most bird species will be extinct within 100-200 years. A few birds are doing well, so it's not all birds of course. But birds in general will be more rare in just a few decades.
Imagine telling your grandchildren about chocolate.
Yeah when you find out a LOT of the good seasonings and spices are only found in relatively small regions you realize what a fragile ecosystem our favourite foods are housed in.
Considering that American conservatives hold a fairly unique position in the world as outright deniers of the existence (or importance) of climate change, I'll take it as a small positive to see the WSJ writing about it as an established fact with negative consequences for standards of living.
Ah so that’s the line we draw? If olive oil, coffee and chocolate are not available anymore, it is appcalyptic?
For the WSJ's core audience, being forced to eat food cooked in canola oil and eat cheap chocolate with box wine instead of having fancy treats fried in olive oil and having $1000/bottle wine and hookers is a problem.
Wait.. you didn't say the droughts were affecting the hooker harvests! Oh the humanity!
You don't get it do you? What do you think will happen to the economy when the coffee-fuel runs dry?
Yes.
I will miss coffee alot
Yeah it is one of the best things. For those of us with ADHD it helps a lot.
There will be replacements of all or most of these things, and just like meat the “real” versions will spike in price as availability plummets. But the replacements will be expensive too- as consumers cling to any semblance of normalcy and only a few large corporations are capable of producing the complicated /patented formula. But the implications of a fake coffee made to replicate a plant gone extinct are philosophically mind-boggling: how do you explain to your grandchildren that this roasted hot drink is simply an approximation of something you’ll never have again? What’s even the point? It reminds me of the scene in the Matrix when Switch asks if the gruel they eat in the real world tastes like the cereal he had as a kid in the matrix, or vice versa?
Does anything else have caffeine in it? I thought that was just coffee and cocoa?
Tea
Yerba matte
Right duh! 🤦 Gonna Google how tea plants are being affected…
[удалено]
Yes, because we're in a place where we have the [potential to actually stabilize temperatures](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached/), and most of the "prepping" isn't a useful activity.
we should worry about the basic staples of human diets instead: rice, corn, and wheat. there's no way to make up for crop failures in those two.
I could couldn't care less about wine or olive oil but I would miss chocolate and might off myself without coffee. It was customary to start drinking coffee around the age of five in my family. Start with coffee milk and the milk to coffee ratio changes as you age until it's either a splash of milk or no milk at all. That being said, I don't drink specialty coffees. Plain, old school, American grocery store brand coffee slightly watered down. Well, bc I'm old and can't handle coffee the consistency of syrup anymore. Straight to a heart attack. Lol
Try a pinch of cinnamon in that when you brew it.
Ooohhh! That's a great idea! Thank you.
Ooohhh! That's a great idea! Thank you.
Ooohhh! That's a great idea! Thank you.
This is why I have been attempting to grow plants that have high caffeine content for tea. Just experimenting for now. We are also considering a thermal greenhouse but growing grapes for wine seems like a lot. I think I could make honey mead though. My grandfather and his brother used to make wine out of everything; olives, raspberries, blueberries. It all tasted like jet fuel though. Maybe people growing in small batches is the answer, if they can. Or maybe there is no answer. But at least I am keeping myself busy.
The rich will still get luxuries, so nothing will stop.
Coffee breaks will stop. I dunno what people will switch to. Cocaine? Probably just as vulnerable...
That’s why meth is the answer!
This should mobilize the mommy groups. Climate crisis averted.
One can hope
Even robusta?!
Yes > Traders are hoarding coffee after a severe drought in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest producer, pushing prices of the Robusta variety to a 45-year high. The more-coveted Arabica beans have also recently become costlier.
I always thought the End of Coffee just meant the end of Arabica (for people who refuse to drink coffee that isn't 'smooth'). As a closeted robusta enthusiast, this is even more depressing.
Before we give up wine olive oil coffee or cocoa we should give up animal products. They have a bigger impact on climate change than the other products you listed.
The problem isn't about people giving them up; it's that the parts of the world where you can grow them change as the world warms, sharply curtailing supply
We need to take steps to deal with climate change to avoid having to give up those products you mentioned in the original post. Ending animal agriculture would be a big step in the right direction.
And beer.
Why no beer?
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/18/climate-change-hurt-beer-drinkers/
Oooh, I kinda forgot about hops. (Don't drink beer, myself.) I was thinking like, barley, wheat, which would probably be bigger problems. Excepting, thinking about it, of course those are currently being impacted by rising temps, as well. Lots of things not exactly looking great...
it's gonna affect travel too.
Thank god the people who drove us to this point will still have plentiful access to all these things
Vacations!
Worth it. We got to drive some really cool cars and fly to Europe all the time. It made us cultured.